“You want to be in the box seat after today’s stage,” was the clear message Jayco AlUla sports director Mathew Hayman told Cyclingnews before the start of stage 2 of the Santos Tour Down Under to Uraidla. That, however, ended up being a position decisively held by UAE Team Emirates-XRG by the end of the day, but the Australian squad did come home as the best of the rest with a strong performance from Mauro Schmid.
Schmid took third place on the stage from the chase behind the winning teammates of Jay Vine and Jhonatan Narváez, with the Swiss champion sprinting to a position on the stage and overall podium from a chase of eight.
Still, there was little anyone could do to chase down the gap to the powerful duo of UAE riders out front so Schmid ended the stage with a gap of 1:05 to race leader Vine and 59 seconds to Narváez, with the pair having taken off after Adam Yates softened up the bunch for the attack. Yates is also now sitting ninth overall at 1:23, just 18 seconds back from Schmid, while O’Connor is in 13th place at 1:28
Even though there was no stopping the charge of UAE Team Emirates-XRG, it was no small effort for Schmid to settle on the podium, as while everything went according to – and even beyond – expectations for Vine’s team there were some hiccups for Jayco AlUla.
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